No One Belongs Here More Than You: Missing Pieces
by tia8206
Summary: Scenes you didn't see in the original story. Recommended pre-reading: "No One Belongs Here More Than You."
1. Forgetting Something

**After a lot of goading from my lovely friends at Livejournal (yes, I'm giving you all Juliet's deadly side-eye right now), I bring you the first of "No One Beings Here More Than You: Missing Pieces."**

**They won't go on forever, but I do have a list of things that never quite made it into the original story. (And makealist, I do have your Dharma-era request on that list.)**

**NOTE: If you haven't read the original, I suggest you click on my username and find that story, because it's likely that some of these mini-stories won't make complete sense otherwise.**

**Oh, and since I've already used a whole lotta Miranda July quotes for the original, here I'm using lines from songs I listed to (obsessively) while writing the original story.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

_"It's nothing but time and a face that you lose._  
_I chose to feel it and you couldn't choose."_

- Stars, "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead"

* * *

**Feb. 4, 2008**

All day long, he feels like he's forgetting something.

James wakes up from a dream he's just missed remembering, except he could swear in his head that Juliet's crying out for him, over and over. Except she's gone. Dead _(no) _or missing, still on the island, or who even fucking knows what, and the last six months (ever since he remembered) have been... well... It's just, he doesn't need to get into this shit all over again. His stomach's already cramped up with grief, and he runs a hand through his hair.

Shit.

So he spends the day trying to remember. His research paper's not due until a week from Tuesday, so it's not that, and he doesn't have Clementine at all this week (he double-checked his calendar), and she doesn't have sports in the winter, and the parent-teacher conference was _last_ week.

Miles is coming to visit next week. He needs to send Sun and Jin a baby gift. Maybe it's that? They're scheduled to finalize their daughter's adoption next month, and what with international mail the way it is, he needs to get on that. But two weeks' lead time is more than enough, and anyway he has no idea in hell what to send them for a baby.

Babies. There's another thing he doesn't want to be thinking about. And he definitely doesn't want to be thinking about how he and Juliet had _just_ started trying before Jackass and Company had to come back and wreck all their lives. And now Kate's in the clink and Jackass ain't no better than he was when he'd started off and Juliet's just... just fucking _gone._

Some fucking reset.

Now James sits in his lecture zoning out and wishing at least he had his daughter this week. She's the only goddamn good thing in his life, and he's so grateful for it that sometimes it makes his teeth hurt. And, yeah, it's not that he'd truly expected everything to be all perfect forever, back there in the good ol' glory days of Dharmaville, but really..._ Yes._ Yes, who's he even kidding, yes, he truly had. That's what makes it so bad. The thought that maybe he and Jules could have had their own little seventies family, their kid growing up with the same pop-culture points of reference as the two of them had... yeah, it would've been secretly surreal, and he wouldn't have his daughter now, but..._ goddamn._

Screw this. He's not paying attention anyway. He shoves his books into his messenger bag, pushes his chair out so abruptly that even the professor looks up, but then he's just throwing open the door of the classroom and then he's alone out in the hall and breathing too heavy.

Why had be woken up with Juliet's panicked crying in his head? It was like she was practically screaming out for him, and even as he remembers it now, every hair on the back of his neck stands up.

_Where IS she?_

For some reason James thinks, then, of reading Slaughter-House Five over and over again in their little yellow house, and Juliet teasing him about it, a time traveler reading a book about a time traveler. But now he wishes he could live in the world of that book, slide back and forth through the good and the bad in life, endure a little, treasure a little, measure out the pain and the joy. Instead of nothing but bad, then three years of goddamn wonderful, and then nothing but this, _this, _here, now, for the rest of his life.

He doesn't know why he'd thought he could have all that good. He'd done nothing to deserve it. That cozy little yellow house, a home. A gorgeous, intelligent, snarky-as-fuck woman who somehow thought that he was somehow worth her time, someone to be loved, even. And an imaginary, wished-for, never-to-be baby.

Who's he kidding? He's not forgetting a damn thing.

It didn't happen. And it's not gonna.


	2. Just Checking

_"We're finally soaking up the hours  
that everyone else throws away."_

- We Are Scientists, "After Hours"

* * *

**August 23, 2013**

Guess what? Jonah has a bike now.

It's red. It has some dents on it and stuff 'cause it used to belong to his sister.

Oh yeah, that's another thing, he has a sister now. Her name's Clementine and she's 11 almost 12 and she lives here half the time and with her mother the other half of the time but Jonah lives here _all_ the time now.

Except it's weird being here, because everything's all different from before, but it's fun too because they have TV and Nintendo and he has a bike except he still doesn't know if he misses the island or not, except sometimes it was kind of scary but mostly he got to play a lot and go swimming in the ocean, and his friend Christopher was there and Christopher didn't come with them.

And you know what's _really_ weird? Is that soon he has to go to school, and Jonah used to think that school was only something in books, even though his mama said it was real but he didn't believe her. But no, it's _really_ real, and he has to go there in a few days or something like that, James showed him on the calendar.

Oh yeah, that's another thing, 'cause they live in the house with James. James is really nice to him and the house is light gray and it's at the top of a really big hill and Mama gets mad when her car slows down right before they get to the very top and that's why she's always trying to fix her car out in the garage.

Cars? Are really really weird. It's fun when he plays Mario Kart, the driving cars game on the Nintendo with his sister. But when he's really in a real car, sometimes they make him kinda dizzy because they can go pretty fast and it looks like the outsides are going pretty fast too, except really the outsides are staying still and _Jonah's _going really fast, and when he thinks about it too hard he has to close his eyes like Mama said to that first time, right after they went away from the island.

It's weird how come his mother knows how to drive a real car because there weren't any of those on the island. Weirdity weird weird. Lots of stuff is weird ever since they went away from the island and Alice isn't here either.

Hey, guess what? If they went back to the island then he wouldn't have to go to school after all.

Hmm, but then he wouldn't have his bike anymore. And maybe if they went back then Clementine or James wouldn't come with them, and that wouldn't be good, so.

Maybe they really are staying like his mama said.

He's making up this game where he hides different pieces of the Legos in between the books on the basement shelves, all in between and behind the different books and you know what? There's a _secret note_ inside this one book that he found and it's written to a doctor maybe, and the book is called something really long, Something That Something Must Something. The middle word is sort of like "rice" which sounds like "ice" which sounds like "mice," and James jokes about boy mice having babies to his mama like she had something to do with it which doesn't make any sense, 'cause boys don't have babies, only girls do.

Oh. Wanna know a secret? This is the secret: James? Is his _father. _

It's not really a secret because everybody knows it, except they want him to call James "Dad," which is weirdity weird weird because he just met him not too long ago, even though James plays with him and pushes him on the swings and stuff. And reads him stories at night sometimes if Mama doesn't.

Jonah used to think for awhile that Nick was his father but then Nick went away or something, and they moved to another place on the island but he can't remember that too good 'cause he was really little. And anyway then they moved to like another place after that and then back to the first place again, where Alice and Christopher and everyone were, except it was really scary when the black smoke came and got really, really, REALLY big, but then it went away and so did they, the end.

Oh. And then for only a little while, Jonah thought that Joe was maybe his father. Except James is his father so that means that Joe wasn't? Right?

Bam bam bam bam! Lots of footsteps on the stairs and James is in the basement now. "Hey, shortstack."

James calls everyone funny names a lot of the time. "Shortstack" is like pancakes.

Jonah makes his eyes real big 'cause he wasn't doing anything wrong like messing with James' books or putting his Legos all in there and he hopes nobody knows sometimes he hides his vegetables in his pockets and then he hides them behind the books after, 'cause he's pretty sure they're just gonna disappear eventually back there anyway. Or, like, his sandwiches if he's too full and he doesn't feel like finding the garbage can 'cause it's too far away and he's playing. "Hi."

James' eyes go over to the shelves and he does this funny smile sort of like Mama does sometimes but James doesn't say anything about the Legos or the vegetables or anything. "You wanna get some ice cream?"

Yes, yes he really really really DOES want to get some ice cream!

Later when they're eating their ice cream (and Jonah got this very really special ice cream that has cookies in it, and he didn't know there could be ice cream with cookies in it 'cept James says that's Clementine's favorite kind), James asks him about school.

It is very very important to tell the truth right now about school. "I don't think I should go to school. 'Cause how come there's no school on the island?"

James thinks about that like it's a really hard question which maybe it sort of is. "Things were real different over there. But here, you get to learn all kinds of things with other kids your own age. And you can go on trips to special places, like museums an' stuff. Your sister got to go to a farm and she held a baby chick."

Jonah doesn't know what a museum is, but a baby chick? Like a little yellow one and it's not gonna grow up and have its head chopped off whack whack whack by his mama? "Really?"

"Yep. And you can take special tests in readin' and math and show off how smart you are. Your mom always really liked that part about school."

"Did you go to school too?"

"Sure did."

"What did you like?"

James thinks for a long time. "Readin' books."

"I like reading books too but I can read them at home. Or you or Mama or Clem can read them to me."

"You scared of meetin' new people?"

That's a really dumb question 'cause of course he is, because there's gonna be a lot of new people that he never met before and they don't know him at _all!_ That's too dumb of a question to even answer so he just nods.

"Your mom, she moved a lot when she was little. She had to meet a lot of new people every time she started a new school, too."

It's weirdity weird weird that Mama didn't live on the island for always. "She did?"

"Yep."

"Did you?"

Now James is quiet for a really really REALLY long time. He's quiet for sooooo looooong that Jonah starts to get sort of bored and he swings his legs against the seat and watches the family at the next table and there's a girl wearing purple and Jonah doesn't like purple very much but he doesn't do a mean face at her or anything because that would not be nice.

"I moved when I was eight," his dad (right?) finally says. "I went to live with my uncle Doug and I started a new school."

Jonah doesn't know why James had to live with Uncle Doug but that sounds sad because where did James' mama go? Didn't James have a mama? But Mama doesn't have a mama of her own either so maybe that's the way it is with grownup people. "And you started a new school?"

"Yep."

"And what happened?"

"Well, the teacher told everyone I was new and I'd jus' moved there and she asked me to say my name and what I liked to do for fun. And then... then later at recess, the kids were playin' baseball, an' they didn't want to give me a turn. But when they finally did, I hit the ball farther than anyone and after that I made friends."

That sounds really really bad because James had to talk to _everyone? _All at _once? _Now his eyes are being made really big without him even meaning to. And James looks scared maybe 'cause Jonah's eyes just got all big.

"'Cept with you, everyone's gonna be starting all at once, on the same day," James goes on. "So everyone is new, and you're all gonna get to know each other together and learn everything all together."

Oh. Hmm. That sounds a little less scary. "James?"

"Yeah?"

"You're still my father, right?"

"Yeah, bud. I'm still your father. I'll always be your father, OK?"

"OK. Just checking."


	3. Clem's Livejournal

_"'Cause it's too corny to cry_  
_well sentiment given and sentiment lost_  
_you shook it off with a smirk and a toss_  
_and you were only joking_  
_you were only joking."_

- Indigo Girls, "Joking"

**

* * *

March 4, 2015**

_OMG._

_Just for once will ANYbody stop having babies?_

_For real. First the girls, OK, they're pretty cute when they're sleeping, but when they're awake? They NEVER leave me alone. Like, EVER. They always want to be doing EVERYthing I'm doing and I can never even get them out of my room. If I'm playing Farmville then Tabby wants to be playing Farmville, and Mom doesn't even let her have her own FB so then she wants to play on mine._

_I can just see it now, like getting my license or going on a date or whatever, and Lulu demanding rides to the mall or trailing after me like she had some personal invitation. And even when Emma or whoever comes over? They still won't leave me alone, and if I slam the door in their sticky little faces 'cause they want in? Yeah, just guess who gets in trouble? Me._

_Jonah's better, either 'cause he's older or a boy or 'cause he lived in like a little tiny village forever where there wasn't anything cool to do or anything to whine about, or something. Well, anyway, no one really ever talks about it. (For awhile I thought maybe they were in the witness protection program or something, but real life isn't like that, so whatever.) Anyway, the kid is entertained enough by Legos or whatever, and if I play a game with him for like five minutes, he's decent enough to act grateful about it._

_But this? Again? Seriously, people, doesn't this ever end?_

_And of course it's gonna be a girl, which means another one following me around and stealing my stuff? And then Dad and Juliet giving each other those sticky-sweet looks all the time, and his hand on her belly (which, BTW, is getting HUGE), it's enough to make me want to puke into my lunchbag on the way to the bus. Or the way he makes her put her feet up after dinner, and she rolls her eyes at him, but then Dad and me have to clean up. At least he makes Jonah dry whatever's not breakable._

_I just know this summer's gonna suck because when I'm here it's going to be all baby-crying, all the time, and no one's going to have any time or whatever to give me rides._

_Yeah, yeah, I know the world doesn't revolve around me. Trust me, I get it. And I'll even try to help, at least with baby-holding (when she's not crying or barfing or pooping)._

_NO diapers. None. Zero. Nada._

_What's really freaking funny is my own dad has never changed a diaper before, either, but that's a whole other story, I guess._

_And in terms of stepmoms, I guess I lucked out. Like, Taylor's stepmom? Is a HUGE BITCH. Juliet never tried to jump in and become, like, best friends or anything. She just sort of kept her mouth shut and helped out where she could. I mean, she didn't force it. She was sort of mental, back then, when she got here. That summer kind of sucked, too, come to think of it. But she's OK now._

_And before that summer, I'd definitely never seen Dad acting like a big schmoopy idiot before. Big idiot, sure, but not schmoopy. It was freaking weird. Embarrassing. Actually, looking back now, it's kind of funny to think about. Or it would be, except once Juliet got pregnant, those sappy little gazes and the forehead-kissing and the hand-holding got ramped up even more, and OMG, how old are they again?_

_They need to get a grip._


	4. Out the Rabbit Hole

_"These days are smoking days_  
_Though he won't see,_  
_(deceived me) You deceive me_  
_(with you) Erase it I will not_  
_(to stay) Touching a helix (didn't she know Alex?)_  
_(I will plead) Blotting an excuse you _  
_(Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice)_  
_would share,_  
_(Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice)_  
_who shall _  
_(Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice)_  
_replace_  
_(Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice)_  
_you?"_

- Cocteau Twins, "Alice"

* * *

**April 23, 1941**

_I know you must think the very worst of me, love._

_But to-day I sit here on the flagstones, turning my face toward the weak London light not at all like that strange light on the island, remembering. Charles has gone off somewhere again with his friends, not like on the days I could steal away and go hunting frogs with him in the streams and all sorts of other nasty things little-boy hobbies with him. _

_They grow so quickly, don't they? And after all, some days I still with the knowledge that I spent more time caring for your little boy than my own. I never even told you about my boy. Did you know? You flinched as I told you my married name, just for an instant before the mask stole over your face again. No, I never told you about him. How could I have?_

_So what kind of a mother does that make me, love? Less of a mother than you? No. We'll both send our own boys off into war when their time comes. I know it and you know it._

_Maybe you'll think differently once you have Widmore blood in your line, too, although somehow I doubt that._

_Really, the problems began after you returned from the other camps, wearing those dreadful dungarees you never took off. You acted as though fighting was beneath you, but the more I asked of you, the less you asked of me. _

_I do miss those days, really. I could still pretend that things were honest between us. I know you didn't really trust me anymore after you returned, but my God, how you wanted to. I could feel it, I could._

_"If I ever see you again, I'll kill you," you once told me. You already proved yourself wrong once._

_And so I'm off to-morrow to see you, you know. No, of course you don't know, how could you? Me off to 2030, to seek yet again the treatments of the future. For all the good it'll do. And to see you in Victoria Station, if I can find you. You and I suppose that husband of yours, that American bloke. Jonah's father. I never could see that. But the pain keeps getting worse. Worse and worse and worse, coughing up blood in the mornings like some tuberculositic nightmare and hiding it from Robert, from Charles. You have no idea what that's like, do you? You don't care about the island's abilities anymore. Not once it got you what you wanted, your sister cured, you and your son out of the rabbit hole. Selfish, selfish, selfish._

_What am I supposed to do now, my boots hidden in the closet, the worn leather shriveled up? All the mud is dried out and crumbling and still I've never cleaned them. Nearly fired Agatha for even trying. Rattling around in this big house, getting my affairs in order, filling up that locked filing cabinet for when Charles comes of age. He is going to find you, of that I am certain. In 1954, you and that fellow of yours.  
_

_And here I sit, wearing a key around my neck once again, feeling the drag of metal against my breastbone. What colors go best with a key, love?  
_

_The sense of humor is supposed to be the last thing to go. Somehow I'm not quite sure that's the case._

_Everything is set, has been set for so long, will always have been. Do you know how brutally unfair that is? Do you know what it's like to be on the losing side of history, on the losing side of my own life? You told me you'd already seen my grave. And yet if you'd spit on it, I wouldn't blame you. And yet I was supposed to destroy you. Oh, the ways the island manages to twist everything into something beyond comprehension. You and I, of course, tried to laugh about it when we could; you trying to explain e-mail and me with our flapper haircuts: the simplest ways we could find.  
_

_I admit there were some days it felt good - having that kind of power over another human being, especially in that place. The day we cut our hair together, the day we began to match, I thought I had already won. I thought that, too, the day we found you, the day He pulled you back into your body and the three of us stood over you: He, Ben and I before we went our separate ways, me to wait for you back at the camp. But of course, I wasn't expecting to care about you. Spend years getting under someone's skin, inside someone's mind, you would be shocked to know the kinds of things that can happen. How much I hated you. How much I loved you. Who brainwashed whom?  
_

_And yet, still I hope. I hope and I hope and I hope._

_You really have no idea, love._


	5. Reward

**Well! I bet no one expected to see one of these pop up! But the truth is, there is one missing piece I've "owed" makealist since probably 2009, and I'd promised it to her as a Christmas gift this past year... then never delivered. **

**And... HA, this isn't it! Sorry 'bout that! However, I'd wanted that particular piece to be the final one of these, and I'd gotten stuck for a long long time on the one I'm sharing here now. The one makealist wanted, however, is almost done, and should finally be up shortly.**

**It is soooo weird writing in this universe again. I had to go back and read a few chapters just to reorient myself!**

**Also, we're going to assume that Google is still a verb a few decades in the future, OK? OK.**

* * *

_I might be wrong_  
_I might be wrong_  
_ I could've sworn I saw a light coming on._

_I used to think_  
_ I used to think_  
_ There was no future left at all._

- Radiohead, "I Might Be Wrong"

* * *

**Aug. 15, 1972**

Eva clears her throat, tries again. "Reward."

This is all wrong, her sitting here in this steamy office with the wooden blinds and the slatted desk chair. The door's open, the ceiling fans turn lazily, and she's half-expecting Harrison Ford in a pith helmet to duck into the room at any goddamn second.

But no, instead she's here in a dark gray jumpsuit with an octagon logo on it, sweating her ass off because these people can almost (not quite, as it turns out, but _almost)_ crack the mysteries of time travel, but can't seem to spring for air conditioning, and/or cooler uniforms.

At least she's not wearing a non-removable winter coat, though. Eva glances at the monitors. Her bears are still sound asleep, and she takes another sip of her Dharma-brand beer, which is probably just a Bud or a Miller with a different label for all they know. Drinking on the job, how respectable. Her father would probably be thrilled with her.

Then again - she glances again at the microphone and tape recorder in front of her - 'thrilled' would probably not be the word he'd use to describe how he would feel about her task at the moment.

Eva hits rewind on the machine, puts down her bottle and presses record again. "Reward."

She's trying to sound smooth but powerful, reassuring but commanding. Yeah, she's overthinking it, and instead it's coming out stilted, almost distorted. Part of her problem is that her voice sounds a hell of a lot like her mother's, and subconsciously she keeps trying to disguise it. And instead it keeps coming out weird.

Well,_ fine_, because this whole damn thing is weird.

* * *

**- FLASHBACK: May 17, 2037 (five years earlier) -**

This could potentially be the most depressing Sunday night of her life.

OK, that's probably an exaggeration, but Eva's more than a little bit bummed about that whole college-being-over thing. The band is breaking up already, the four members of Hostile Indigenous spinning off in different directions across the country already, even though she herself isn't due at her graduate program at NYU until the middle of August.

Everyone's been busy with their families all weekend, she should have expected this, no final night out with her friends. Or they already had their final night out, she supposes, sometime last week. Nope, now she is Grown Up. Grumble. It's only a little bit after 10 p.m., her parents off at their hotel, and she's perched on a bar stool, sitting next to none other than her 35-year-old (half-)sister... who's currently on her phone checking on the kids since apparently Lucy has just woken up all upset without her mama there.

Whoo! Wild night!

Eva downs the last of her beer and absented-mindedly rubs at the calluses on her fingers. It's not like she won't be able to find people to play music with in fucking Greenwich Village, right?

Next to her, Clementine shifts in her seat. "OK... OK... Mommy misses you, too. I know, baby. I know. Love you too. OK. Give the phone back to Daddy now... give the phone... give the phone back to - hello?"

She sighs, laughing a little, and hangs up. "Guess she was done." She angles the neck of her beer bottle toward Eva's. "You want another one?"

"Nah, think I'm good."

"You mind if _I_ have another one?"

This is soooo freaking weird. She's not going to get in trouble for drinking, right? She's Grown Up now, dammit. Legal and everything, 22 at the end of this month. "...Well, if you're in, I'm in."

Clementine catches the bartender's eye, signalling for two more. The drinks arrive, and they clink bottles. Yep, this is definitely weird, drinking with Clem. Joe's far closer to her (both of them) in age, it probably wouldn't be so weird for _him_ to be sitting in this seat, next to either one of them, or even both - he's always been a good bridge. But he'd hightailed it out of here only a couple hours after Eva's graduation ceremony this morning. Some big thing he and Faraday are cooking up over at Oxford, apparently, but who really knows, anyway?

No, to Eva, Clementine was Babysitter Extraordinaire, the cool big sister who could _drive,_ and dressed up all fancy for proms, and headed off to college when Eva was just getting ready to start kindergarten, and then came home for visits full of stories Eva didn't really understand. Clementine? NOT a drinking buddy.

But, here they are. Being drinking buddies.

They chat some more about the kids, her two stepdaughters (Eva's mom had smirked just a tiiiiny bit back when she'd heard Clem was seeing a man with kids) and the two littlest girls, two and four. Little enough that Clem decided it would be far too much of a hassle to bring them all out for graduation.

"So when's the big internship start?" Clem asks at a lull in conversation.

San Francisco Zoo, observing and feeding. Helping create enrichment activites for them. Whoo whoo, how freaking exciting. Enriching, even. She'd applied for the pandas, and they'd stuck her with the polar bears. She knows she should be excited about even having been selected, so she works up a smile. "June first."

"...But?" Clem prompts.

But what? _BUT I wanted to work with the pandas, and now I'm going to sulk about it like a little kid? BUT I'm sadder about the band breaking up than any relationship-related breakup I've ever experienced? BUT Dad acted super-weird when I told him about my internship?_

She tries for optimistic: "I don't know, maybe it'll work out for the best."

"You can't always get what you want," Clementine singsongs.

Eva arches an eyebrow. "But if I try sometimes, I'll get what I need?"

"Hey!" She nods approvingly. "Good job on your '70s music knowledge."

Eva shrugs. Hard not to be exposed to that, growing up in her house. She doesn't know anyone else whose old-ass parents are that obsessed with music that was out when they were just little kids, but hey, her parents are kind of weird sometimes about stuff like that.

Like her dad, when she'd been telling him about the band woes, Elliott headed out to Kansas of all places, Alyssa joining up with some weird electronic outfit up in Seattle, Andre en route to grad school in L.A., her dad shook his head. "Listen, I know Hostile's real important to you an' all, but what you gotta do is go back to the '70s... I mean - " he practically started spluttering here - "y'know, just that I think that your music is real good, and the classics... I mean, not that YOU need to... that you... you know what, just keep on what you've been doin', all right, baby girl?"

She's started experimenting with some old-timey riffs anyway. Kind of fun in its own way.

Clementine is saying now, "Sometimes you can learn more from the unexpected experiences, you know?"

Eva nods obediently, once again a little sponge soaking up information. It's still hard sometimes to not automatically fall into the role of baby sister around Ms. Type A.

"Like when your mom was working for Doctors Without Borders? The situation fell apart really bad down there, but she..." Clementine frowns and trails off. "You know what, that's probably a terrible example, actually. You know what, like Alabama. Dad hated it at first, but it got him writing. There you go, perfect example."

Eva remembers Alabama just fine, the dock in the back her parents were always so moony over. But she's not sure she's ever heard the first story before. She used to get so frustrated when she was younger, feeling like she was missing out on stuff. "When was my mom working for Doctors Without Borders?"

Clem looks downright uncomfortable now. "Um... before she and Joe moved in with Dad and me."

"I thought she used to work for the State Department?"

"No, you're right," her sister answers quickly. "I was getting it mixed up with something else."

Kind of like how Eva used to get Dad's bedtime stories mixed up with things she would sometimes overhear her parents talking about, she thinks. It's easy for a kid to get confused, after all. And his bedtime stories were always full of exciting, fantastical elements, a monster made out of only smoke, a time-traveling group of friends, a group of plane crash survivors ending up on a not-so-deserted island... No Three Bears or Rumplestiltskin for Eva, thank you! And now, having read all of Dad's books, it's clear to her that when she listened to his stories, or eavesdropped on her parents conversations, they were all just things he was writing about.

For the most part, anyway. There's a few things she's still waiting to see pop up in his work. He's never seemed to have written anything about her mother, for instance. Except in the time-traveling friends story. That totally could have been based on her. Eva had found it kind of cute, actually, until the person with her mother's sense of humor shot some people.

Well, whatever. You didn't end up on the New York Times bestseller list for writing about bunnies.

She nods at Clem, trying to shake the feeling that her sister knows more than she's letting on, and they both take another sip of their beers.

* * *

She asks them about it at brunch the next morning. So she missed out on a lot of stuff because she was too little or not even born yet, but it can't hurt to get it straightened out, right? That's all it is... right?

Clementine's already left to get back to her family, and Mom and Dad are both distracted, due to fly out to visit their friends in South Korea from here, since they're already on the West Coast. Dad's been in a foul morning all morning because of it. He totally hates flying, and for no apparent reason that Eva can discern, but he's grumpy anyway.

Meanwhile, her mother has been answering a string of messages on her mobile device the entire time Eva and Dad have been reading their menus, and Eva would tease her about not devicing at the table like she always used to get scolded over, except Mom is looking increasingly tense, and she's not sure she's ready to have them _both_ ticked off.

Especially not Mom, because, scary death glare? No thank you. Not before noon.

Finally, though, her mother puts the thing down and smiles at them both. "Sorry about that."

"Everythin' OK?" Dad murmurs sideways at her.

She turns and gives him a long look, one of those ones that Eva's never quite been able to discern. But Dad's eyes widen questionly and she gives him a little nod.

"O..K?" Eva finally prompts.

Mom flutters a hand, taking a long sip of her mimosa. "No, it's just... a piece of equipment in Oxford. They think they got it working, and..."

"That's good, right?" Eva asks.

Mom and Dad don't say anything at first. "Yes," Mom says quietly, right as Dad thumps a "Yep."

The waiter comes by to take their orders, and Eva wonders exactly what the hell that was all about. Probably something boring, anyway. Animal science is a hell of a lot more interesting than physics, that Eva knows for sure. She could barely stay awake in physics 101, and that was enough for her. And hey, if a fertility researcher wants to finance other sciences, maybe she could help rustle up a couple extra pandas? (A girl can dream, anyway.)

The pandas are what makes her think of last night in the bar with Clem, actually. "So, hey, Mom - Clem and I got to wondering last night. Where were you working before you moved back to Oregon, again?"

There's another silence, and then Mom says, "Doctors Without Borders." Only she says it at the exact same moment Dad offers, "The State Department."

Eva stares at them. They're staring at each other. Finally, Dad laughs... sort of. "I got it wrong again, huh?"

"Well, I was... at the State Department _before_ Doctors Without Borders." Mom laughs... sort of. "I think I'm going to have to get it tattooed on your forehead. You never remember, do you?" She takes another long sip of her mimosa, then turns her focus back on Eva. "So what are you up to the rest of the week? Did you end up getting tickets to that show you wanted to see, what was the name again..."

O...K. After Eva drops them off at the airport, though, she whips out her device and messages Clementine. _she said one thing, he said another. state dept/MSF. wtf?_

She has to wait a few minutes, but eventually, her device buzzes. Eva commits the horrifying crime of checking the message at a red light.

_i'm really sorry i just pulled u into this, but... google juliet burke_, it says. _and leah tobin. _

* * *

**Aug. 15, 1972, continued**

"Reward," Eva tries again, then rewinds the tape, AGAIN, and erases it, AGAIN. She still sounds too much like her mother. Ugh! It's really not like he's even going to notice, right? Not in 2004, anyway. But he couldn't remember if he'd ever heard it in the '70s, and she can't stop obsessing over it.

She drums her fingers on the edge of the desk, her hands just as callused as ever. The new band is practicing again tonight, and she's excited about it. She's out of here in less than two years, though. Gotta make the most of it. She won't miss the heat, the tiny yellow houses, never getting to GO anywhere, and ironically, she's ultimately going to go right back to square one, missing her band, but for now, it's kind of worth it. Her bears are interesting. Maybe more interesting than the pandas, which she did get a chance to work with after all. But the polar bears just learn so much faster.

Anyway, missing her band? In a way, that was exactly how she'd ended up here in the first place.

(Yeah, right. Like all of this _wasn't_ written down before she was even born. She knows this, now.)

Lisa's in the doorway now, here to begin her shift. "How's it going?"

Eva nods at the monitors, displaying the giant white figures. "Sleeping right now. I think they must be hungover or something."

"Wild polar party last night?" Lisa drops her canteen and lunch sack on the desk. "OK, great."

Eva starts to gather her stuff together, but the microphone is still sitting right there on the desk. This shouldn't be so difficult, should it? "Hey, before I go... could you do me a favor?"

Lisa shrugs. "Yeah, sure."

Eva slides the mic over. "I just need to you to say one thing."


End file.
